The present invention relates to weatherstripping for doors, and, more particularly, to weatherstripping of the type employed at the bottom of the door to cooperate with a sill or a threshold to provide a seal therewith.
Various types of weatherstripping have been developed for use with wooden, clad, and synthetic resin entry doors to provide effective seals about the periphery thereof. Clad doors frequently have wooden stiles and rails providing a frame, and metal or plastic skins are secured thereto. With clad doors having a bottom rail, it is common to cut channels into the bottom rail to seat mounting elements on the weatherstripping member to effect its assembly thereto.
With such clad doors, and indeed all doors, it is desirable that there be an effective seal between the outer face of the door and the bottom weatherstrip element to ensure that there is no penetration of water and/or air therebetween, and it is not uncommon for beads of sealant to be applied between the weatherstrip and the door in an effort to effect such a seal. If the sealant bead is not adequate or dries out and cracks, the desired seal therebetween is lost. Failure to provide an effective seal can result in the penetration of water into the interface and ultimate rotting of a wooden rail as well as corrosion of metal skins. Moreover, in some clad doors, the skin does not extend to the bottom of the rail.
It has heretofore been proposed to provide an upwardly extending sealing fin on a bottom sweep to extend along the front surface of the door to provide a seal overlapping the interface. However, the process of assembling such a bottom sweep to the door may result in the inadvertent capture of the sealing fin under the edge of the door and crushing of the fin between the door and the body portion of the bottom sweep.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel bottom sweep having an upwardly extending sealing fin which does not interfere with the assembly process and which is brought into sealing engagement with the front face of the door upon assembly.
It is also an object to provide such a bottom sweep which can be quickly and economically fabricated as a unitary structure and which may be readily mounted.
Another object is to provide such a bottom sweep which fits tightly against the bottom edge of the door while providing good sealing engagement to the face of the door to prevent penetration of water and air therebetween.